“Here, my lady, on the near side—on the left. It’s down in the road, whatever it is.”
Lady Bell went behind the brougham to the near side—she was too well acquainted with horses and their moods to cross in front of the horse’s eyes—and looked about her. For a moment she could see nothing, but presently, when her eyes had become used to the darkness, she saw a man lying, as it seemed, right under the horse’s body.
Her impulse—and she always acted on that impulse—was to pull him out. But to pull a man even an inch is a difficult task even for the strongest girl, and after a moment’s tug she was about to tell Jackson to alight while she stood at the horse’s head, when suddenly the prostrate man staggered to his feet, and leaned against the brougham as if it had been specially built and brought there for that purpose.
Lady Bell went up to him and laid her hand upon his arm.
“What has happened?” she said, anxiously. “Were you run over—are you hurt?”
Jack—for it was Jack—opened his eyes and stared at her with the gravity of a man suddenly sobered.
“No,” he said, “I am not hurt. Don’t blame the man, it was my fault. Not hurt at all. Good-night.”
And he feels for his hat, which at that moment was lying under the carriage a shapeless mass.
As he spoke Lady Bell saw something drop on to his hand, and looking at it saw that it was a drop of blood.
With a shudder—for she could not bear the sight of blood—she said: